How does Bangladesh cope with extreme floods?

EVERY summer, people in South Asia anxiously await the start of the monsoon season. More than 70% of the region’s annual rainfall arrives between June and October. Unusual rains almost always spell disaster. If the downpour is too little or too late, drought sets in. If there is too much rain, huge tracts of land disappear under the deluge. For parts of Bangladesh and India, this year has already proved catastrophic. Uncommonly heavy rain in May and June caused rivers to burst their banks. By June 22nd, some 83% of Sylhet and 90% of Sunamganj—two districts in the north-east of Bangladesh that are home to 6m people—were completely underwater. Across Bangladesh and the neighbouring Indian states of Assam and Meghalaya, authorities and aid workers are frantically trying to reach more than 9m people. At least 100 are thought to have died, around 30 of them in Bangladesh.

The death toll will almost certainly increase in the coming days. But it is lower than might have been expected given the severity of the flooding. In July 2021, for example, heavy rain and flash-flooding in Belgium and Germany—countries much richer and less populous than Bangladesh—killed more than 180 people. In Bangladesh the number of deaths associated with such disasters has reduced dramatically. In 1970 Cyclone Bhola killed somewhere in the region of 300,000 to 500,000 people. In 2020 Cyclone Amphan—thought to be the most powerful storm to form in the Bay of Bengal in two decades—killed around 30. How has Bangladesh reduced the toll of extreme weather?